PBA CommCup Power Rankings Week 3: “Arouch”

Arouch! Can I just say that the past week was one of the worst weeks of PBA basketball I’ve seen this year. I mean there were five lopsided games out of a possible seven and two were only deceptively close (BGSM vs. RoS last Sunday and Air 21 vs. RoS last Wednesday). Barako and TNT failed to show up last week. Plus we saw one of the worst games in the history of basketball since I led PAREF Northfield’s SBP basketball team (9-12 years old varsity) to a 104-8 loss (Yes, our team was so bad that Kiefer Ravena’s La Salle GH team — he was only four years old at that time — would’ve beaten us) to Xavier School twelve years ago.

1. ALASKA ACES (Last week: 1st)

(Record: 5-0 / Offensive Efficiency: 2nd / Defensive Efficiency: 1st)

Despite the perfect start, the jury is still out on this Alaska team. There is still that danger of being “too high” on them. Why? Because they’ve had the easiest schedule so far and they caught TNT where only its ball boys showed up.

But make no damn effin’ mistake. The Aces have been the best team so far because they have eviscerated opponents with slow, mechanical, cutthroat efficiency on both sides of the court. They have been the most consistent and cohesive team in the conference when it comes to submitting solid efforts every night, and a lot of that has something to do with how impressively fast Coach Luigi has made Dozier comfortable in the Triangle.

2. PETRON BLAZE BOOSTERS (Last week: 2nd)

(Record: 5-1 / Offensive Efficiency: 3rd / Defensive Efficiency: 2nd)

I really thought twice of putting the Boosters at 2nd instead of the 3rd spot because of how poorly they performed against Air 21 last Wednesday (Was that a basketball game? I thought it was two teams well prepared for a…preseason game.). But hey, they did what they were supposed to do. They limited a bad offensive team to one point less that what Stephen Curry put up at MSG and they handily beat Barako Bull.

Oh shit. I almost forgot that they were playing without Alex Cabagnot! Could it be? Hey, could it be that they are evolving into an ‘RoS’, a team who’s great at covering up for injured stars because of their depth and consistent effort on both ends? The Mayans weren’t right!